


How "Fiddle" Ends

by azriona



Series: Fiddle 'Verse [4]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-10
Updated: 2016-12-10
Packaged: 2018-09-07 17:12:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 17,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8809192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/azriona/pseuds/azriona
Summary: It's been almost a year since I've updated this universe, and over a year since I've updated the original story. I've decided not to return to the story, but I didn't want to leave without telling you how "A Fiddle in the Band" was meant to end.





	1. What This Is, and What This Is Not

First, what this is not: This is not a new story in the Fiddle 'Verse. This is my notes and thoughts and explanations for how I envisioned the story to end. There is a bonus chapter, of sorts, because I had quite a lot of backstory for John and I'm going to share it with you in its entirety, but if you're looking for an actual fic, you'll probably be disappointed. 

Then again, if you're reading this, you're probably already disappointed, and for that, I apologize. I really did mean what I said, that I didn't want to abandon this story. But I can't continue writing it any longer - I think my enthusiasm died for it a while ago. It's time for me to set it down and walk away.

I started writing and posting A Fiddle in the Band as a work in progress. My normal process is to write the story as a complete thing, and then post it chapter by chapter. But for Fiddle, for some reason, I decided to post chapters as I wrote them. I warned up front that this wasn’t my usual M.O., and therefore, I couldn’t predict when (or even if) I would finish it.

Two years on, I’m not sure I’m ever going to return to this story. I’m quite proud of it, and I love the world I’ve created for John and Sherlock. But… I just can’t get into the mindset I need to write it (which is quite dark).

I’ve always appreciated knowing what happens at the end of the story, and I have a lot of the notes left over from when I was working full-throttle on Fiddle, so I thought I would share them. A lot of it isn’t really formalized – it’s just ideas. I don’t really write with outlines or synopses, I tend to use the discovery thing when I write, which is why I like to write a story completely before I post it, because then I can go back and insert all the foreshadowing and correct what I’ve changed in the writing. (See John’s ever-changing methods of making coffee.)

As always with my stories, I have a lot happening in the background, and things that are brewing but haven’t really been presented yet – goodness, I only just introduced my main villain, and wow, his story was complicated! So I’m going to do my best now to explain to you where I thought I was going with this, and hopefully give those of you who are reading it some kind of closure on how it would end.

Let me add this as well: the chances of me returning are pretty slim. I’ve actually tried, once or twice, and I just can’t get into the right frame of mind for it. I’m so very sorry – I really did enjoy writing the songs for John, and as I wrote them, I even had melodies in mind. I can’t write music down, and as I reread them, I don’t really remember how I thought they should be sung, which is too bad. (But probably just as well – I doubt they’d be much good!) 

However, since I don’t plan to return to this story, I’ll say now that I give anyone blanket permission to finish it for me. I do not plan on orphaning this story – I still claim it – but if you want to play with writing the ending as I’ve written it, or write your own version, or record the music, or anything, please feel free to do so. I only ask that you do NOT copy the chapters I have written here. Please link to them, and let me know so that I can provide a link to your work. If you do record the music with your own tunes, please credit the lyrics as appropriate, and let me know so I can link to those as well.

Thank you so much for reading, and again, I am so sorry that I was unable to finish this story. I hope what follows brings whatever closure you need on this version of Sherlock and John.


	2. The Case

Every good Sherlock epic deserves a question, if not a full-blown mystery. I decided I wanted to write a mystery, of sorts – a good old crimefic, with a serial killer and some seriously dark backstory and all the fun that goes with. And in the last posted chapter, I finally introduced my villain. What a creepy guy, too! Here’s how I saw the mystery unfolding.

Sherlock starts the tour as the opening act for Trisha Yearwood. He’s got his eye on this strange stagehand, who is nice and all but no one knows much about him and Sherlock is suspicious from the start. Plus, there’s all these things happening in the cities they’ve just left – murders discovered and other things, and Sherlock’s the only one who sees the connection. But it’s not until partway through the tour that things come to a head, and John Watson shows up again, having decided to come to the concert on a whim. It’s while Sherlock and John are together that someone actually tries to murder Sherlock – and John of course saves Sherlock’s life. John decides to stay because Sherlock’s such an idiot that he actually _might_ get himself killed. I was thinking this would all go down in Phoenix, except that’s kind of far for John to travel on a whim, so probably not. More likely I would have gone with Tulsa or Oklahoma City, both of which would probably feature on a tour featuring Trisha Yearwood.

So John starts to travel with Sherlock, and after another stop or two, they reach Texas – Dallas, probably, because I know the city. That’s when they meet up with FBI agent Greg Lestrade. He agrees with Sherlock that there’s something funny going on with these murders, but he doesn’t think the stagehand has anything to do with it. He does agree to work with Sherlock. I hadn’t really figured out much about Lestrade in the story – again, discovery – but he probably wouldn’t have changed much from how we saw him in the original BBC ‘verse, just with a Texan accent and a thing for barbecue.

In case you haven’t guessed – the stagehand is that weird skin-wearing guy we met at the very last chapter. He’s totally up to no good – _and_ he had something to do with Victor Trevor’s murder, the one I alluded to earlier in the story. That’s actually what has brought Sherlock to country music – first of all, Victor liked it, and Sherlock liked Victor. (Maybe more than liked… but I don’t really get into the specifics there, mostly because I hadn’t made up my mind about them!) But also, Sherlock believed this guy had something to do with Victor’s death all along, but he was never able to prove it at the time. He’s been trying to get close enough to him to get the evidence he needs, and pretending to be a country musician is the only way he could think of to do it. (I… might be stretching logic here a little bit. Bear with me.)

It all comes to a head in Florida. The stagehand’s last name is… you may have guessed this… Mr. Hudson. Anyone want to guess who his wife is? Yep. Mr. Hudson killed Victor because he believed that Victor was the cause of his daughter’s death so many years ago. Who knows if he’s right, but he’s gone off the deep end since. Sherlock and John and Lestrade finally get the evidence they need, and off Mr. Hudson goes to jail. Or maybe the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, who the heck knows.

What follows is the whole of my notes about Mr Hudson and his motivations. I had to do a LOT of thinking to get his story straight, so if you’re looking to get a sneak peek into how I plot things, you’re in for a treat. Or a headache. Or both. I haven’t changed a word of the file – it’s exactly the way I found it earlier this week. I know I said earlier that I don’t work off timelines or synopses, but I’ve found sometimes that when I’m stuck on a particular plot point, writing out my ideas can often help me figure out what needs to happen.

I’ve included the song John will eventually write for the Hudson daughter. It’s called The Ballad of Gloria Scott (canon for the win!). It might be one of my favorite songs from the story.

* * *

 

The Hudsons had a daughter – Gloria.  As her father was involved in country music, she was surrounded by it for her entire childhood.  And she loved making music, too, and started taking tiny lessons from most of the musicians even when she was small – mostly they’d show her how the instruments played and so she learned a little bit from all of them. 

 

But her favorite, as she grew older, was the violin.  Fiddle in country terms, but she loved it in all its forms – the quick pounding race of country, the long slow of blood-in-veins of classical.  She learned from one of the younger fiddle players as a six-year-old, and even though the other instruments fell to the side, that one always stayed constant.  She got better, too, and by the time she was in her mid-teens, she was very good.

 

She wants to go to Julliard or a music conservatory – and gets in to most places – but ends up going to one of the music conservatories in Texas (parental influence?)  (Look at: Shepherd School of music in Houston at Rice University which has a strong symphonic & opera program.  Univ of North Texas in Dallas, strong jazz program and just about every other type of music.  Also note that Florida State has a strong opera program.)

 

She somehow manages to get involved in an exchange program (through the Houston Symphony?) and goes to London to learn there, and while she’s in the orchestra there, she meets Victor Trevor, who also plays in the London Symphony (not violin).  He’s fascinated by her country background, as he’s always had a thing for country, and they cultivate a strong friendship (Victor being gay, and Gloria knows it – though she’s initially quite shocked b/c she’s never run into that.)  But they become very good friends. 

 

So Gloria is in London, studying and playing for the London Symphony.  She’s friends with Victor Trevor, who is also a musician for the Symphony.  And someone, Gloria meets this guy.  He’s a bit shady, and Victor’s heard some bad things about him, but Gloria is convinced he’s a good guy underneath.  Anyway, her year in London is about up, and she’s spending more and more time with this guy, because she’s afraid of what the upcoming separation is going to mean for their relationship. And then she turns up dead.

 

The story is that she was out with Victor and a few other Symphony friends, and they had dinner, and then she was meeting her boyfriend for drinks afterwards.  About an hour or so after she leaves them, Victor gets a call on his mobile – it’s Gloria at a payphone, and she asks him for a ride home, saying she explain when he gets there.  Victor goes to the corner – it’s about a block away from where Gloria’s boyfriend lives – but by the time he gets there, some twenty minutes after the call, Gloria’s gone, and since she doesn’t have a cell, he can’t call her back. He drives the distance between the corner and Gloria’s flat, but he doesn’t see Gloria.

 

They find Gloria’s body two days later, on the other side of town.  DNA matches the boyfriend, and witnesses say they saw him near the area on the night in question.  But the evidence is circumstantial at best, and the prosecution can’t stick it to him, and he’s let go.

 

This all takes place about five years previous to the events of Fiddle; the following year, Victor is in rehab and meets Sherlock Holmes, and that’s where Victor dies.  Sherlock immediately suspects that Victor was murdered, and moreover that it’s Hudson who killed him.  But no one will pay attention to him, so he comes up with his plan to go to the US to do it himself.

 

(It’s not like he has anything better to do, after all.)

 

This seems very complicated.  I think it needs to be simpler. 

 

Okay.  Hudson kills Victor four years ago, and that’s what sends Sherlock to the U.S. to pursue the country music career, because Sherlock is trying to catch him for killing his friend.  It seems like such an extreme reaction from Sherlock – what about Victor’s death would make him give up everything in London to go down a path he finds despicable? 

 

Well…Victor is his first real friend, remember.  And no one believes that Victor was murdered – they all think it was suicide.  Maybe it’s the perception that everyone thought Sherlock would go the same way –that they’re so willing and quick to assume the worst of Victor – to write him off, essentially.  And he’s tired of being written off. 

 

He knows the Victor was fascinated by country music – and he knows that this Hudson man was connected to that business.  In fact, that’s why Hudson was there at all.  They had a connection – Hudson’s daughter Gloria, who was one of Victor’s friends at the Symphony but died a year before.  Hudson visited Victor twice in rehab while he was in London, but Sherlock was never privy to their conversations.  The first time, Victor was excited and emotional, because he really did feel badly over Gloria, and when he came out from the meeting, he said that Mr Hudson was a real gentleman and friendly fellow, and that there weren’t hard feelings.  Victor seemed at peace.  He was mildly confused why there would be a second meeting some weeks later, but seemed to look forward to it, but afterwards, was somewhat agitated. 

 

He turns up dead two days later.

 

So Sherlock is absolutely convinced that Hudson was somehow involved in Victor’s death – that it wasn’t suicide, but murder.  When he’s released from rehab about a month later, he’s clean, and what’s more, he has _purpose_ – to figure out what happened to Victor Trevor.  He can’t get access to the medical report by legal methods, so he breaks into the coroner’s office and looks it up.  

 

And he looks up Gloria Hudson too – and learns that she wasn’t working under that name in the UK, but under a stage name of Gloria Scott (which is how she’s listed in the Symphony).  Her boyfriend was a suspect in her death, but it never went to trial because there wasn’t enough evidence to convict him.  Also, he seems to have disappeared entirely, the last known whereabouts approximately two months prior to Victor’s first meeting with Mr Hudson.

 

So Sherlock decides this is enough and goes to the U.S., finds Ned Turner who can represent him as a musician, and gets working.  He’s a very good violist, and is able to copy that over to fiddle-playing, all the time working for his goal of getting closer to Hudson himself so that he can try to find some evidence that would tie Hudson to both Victor’s death and the boyfriend’s disappearance.

 

Getting onto Yearwood’s tour is the culmination of that goal, because he knows that Hudson as tour manager will be there, and it gives Sherlock the ability to watch him at close range. 

 

 

 

Right, so, Mr Hudson.  Mr Hudson is married to Martha Hudson who lives in Florida.  He’s a nice guy but he’s got this possessive, violent streak.  Never laid a hand on Martha, or their daughter, he’s as gentle as can be around women.  And he’s careful around men, too, nice as can be around animals.  But if you cross him – well, things tend to happen if you cross him, and not always pleasant, either.  There’s just something about him that seems…off.

 

One thing everyone agreed upon was that he loved his daughter Gloria more than life itself.  And when that little girl was killed, he sort of went off the deep end.  Went to London and lived in her footsteps for a little while and hounded the police authorities there and when everything came to naught….came home a broken and changed man, and took a few years off the circuit entirely. 

 

What really happened – he went to London and watched the boyfriend, and determined that if the police weren’t going to convict the boyfriend, he’d avenge Gloria’s death himself.  And so he does.  Afterwards, so overcome with guilt, he goes to meet Victor Trevor in rehab, and it’s a good meeting – until something Victor says at the end bothers him, so he goes back a few weeks later, and that’s when he plants it in Victor’s head that it’s Victor’s fault that Gloria died.

 

(What does Victor say? Maybe Victor has some residual guilt.  After all, Gloria did call him and ask him to help her, and he was late getting there.  Maybe if he hadn’t been … oh, that’s right, he’s an addict, so maybe he was high at the time?  Maybe he admits to Hudson that he screwed up, that it was probably longer than the 20 minutes he reported to police, it was more like two hours because he didn’t actually talk to Gloria, he only got the message on his mobile about half an hour after she left it.  (And deleted the message after so they couldn’t figure that out.)  He references this to Hudson, and then Hudson realizes it later and goes back to confront. 

 

And Hudson confronts, tell him he forgives him even though it’s Victor’s fault that Gloria is dead.  Total manipulation and playing on Victor’s guilt, psychological.  “I don’t know how you can live with yourself.  You must be a strong person to suffer that guilt.”  And of course, Victor’s NOT a strong person, so he offs himself --- ooo, with something Hudson gives him.  Because it has to look like suicide, and what better than to kill Victor with his own medicine, so Hudson gives him some super-concentration of the heroin or coke or some combination thereof, and that’s part of the mystery is how Victor got it at all.

 

So now the case is changed, and Hudson knows it: there was a LOT of time in which Gloria was wandering London, it’s not just a 20-minute span.  It’s possible she waited for Victor, but more likely that she started moving when she didn’t reach him.  Hudson goes back to the scene of the crime, and starts walking that path between the pay phone and her flat, further away from the boyfriend’s apartment.

 

(What happened to Gloria?  She’s walking home after her aborted call to Victor.  Or would she have called someone else?  Maybe…yes.  Another symphony member, one who hadn’t been out that night with them.  One who lives in the area.  And that’s who Hudson sees, and it takes him a while to realize the significance of this, because he doesn’t see anything else noteworthy between point A and point B.  He determines on the walk that he was right, that the boyfriend killed her – but it doesn’t make sense, because the boyfriend hadn’t really seemed the murdering type exactly.  A bad boy, sure, but not THAT bad.)

 

Anyway, he goes home, and takes a sabattical from music, and it’s two years before he goes back into it, and the reason why he does is because he recognizes the kid he saw on the street during that walk.  The kid who bumped into him, apologized, turned bright red and ran: he was in the Symphony with Gloria, and now he’s playing music in the U.S.  (Maybe he’s the fiddle player who Hudson kills and that’s what gets Sherlock into Yearwood’s show?) 

 

 

_Me again, writing in 2016: So it appears that I changed tactics here – Gloria isn’t murdered in London. She just gets sick. I’m not sure why I made this leap, or where what follows was supposed to pick up – I don’t usually delete stuff, I’ll cross it out, but there’s nothing here and I don’t remember what I was thinking at the time, apart from wanting to emulate the whole Jefferson Hope method of murder._

 

 

Despite this, Victor doesn’t notice – or doesn’t say anything – when Gloria goes through the year getting sicker and sicker, and by the time she goes home, she’s extremely ill.

 

But it’s another few months before she goes to the doctors, and by then, the cancer has spread quite rapidly.  She goes for treatment, and it looks like it’s working – and then it doesn’t.  And she dies.  Very tragic. 

 

So Hudson is basically so despondent, he’s going around killing all the people who he thinks SHOULD have saved her, and he’s making it look like suicide for each of them.  Heck – maybe it IS suicide, in the end, because he’s so good with words that he actually makes them think that their actions (or lack thereof in Victor’s case) led directly to Gloria’s death.  Oh, that’s better, that’s more ASiP.  Hudson is going to be incredibly charming and able to convince anyone of anything. 

 

So, he kills Victor b/c Victor was that close to Gloria and didn’t notice she was sick, or didn’t press for her to seek treatment sooner.

 

He kills the fiddle player who taught her to play (that’s the guy Sherlock replaces).

 

He kills the doctor in Phoenix? Who didn’t save her from dying.

 

He kills one of her music teachers in Houston at Rice. 

 

He kills whoever told her about the exchange program – I can make that happen anywhere, I think.  Maybe this is the Tulsa attack?  That one has to happen when Sherlock and John are near, though – and maybe someone in the band or backstage, because it’s the only way I’m going to get John to join up, because he and Sherlock witness something.  Or think they’re being targeted. 

 

_Me again: And here’s the song that John is going to write for Gloria – The Ballad of Gloria Scott. This is one of the last songs I wrote for Fiddle, and I think it’s my favorite._

 

(two verses, and then the chorus)

She picked up a fiddle when she was only three

She said, “Daddy won’t you sit there and listen to me?”

She rosined the bow, tucked the base under her chin

And the music she played slowly pulled them all in

 

She played Little Bo Peep and Bobby McGee

She played Don’t You Sit Under the Apple Tree

She played like her music was the best kind of sin

And the only thing that mattered was her and her violin.

 

CHORUS: (the “Gloria” is protracted)

Sing, Gloria,

Your life is waiting just around the bend.

Play, Gloria,

That your story won’t ever end.

You might love it more than life itself

But your fiddle gathers dust on your daddy’s shelf

 

Daddy watched his girl play her heart away

Daddy knew he’d have to say goodbye one day

Daddy paid for lessons and recitals but all the time he knew

She’d be flying to the world when her learnin’ was through.

 

He kept the postcards she wrote on the kitchen buffet

He kept the photos and awards and articles up on display

He followed her progress with a map and a box full of pins

And remembered only the music when she played just for him

 

CHORUS: (the “Gloria” is protracted)

Sing, Gloria,

Your life is waiting just around the bend.

Play, Gloria,

That your story won’t ever end.

You might love it more than life itself

But your fiddle gathers dust on your daddy’s shelf

 

She’d been gone for ten years when she picked up the phone

She said, “Daddy, I’m kinda sick, and I’d like to come home.”

She was paler and she was thinner than she’d ever been

And she didn’t have the strength to even play violin.

 

Daddy sits by her side and he holds her hand tight

Daddy watches her chest rise and fall every night

Daddy’s heart breaks like the strings on her violin

When he remembers the way that she’d play just for him

 

CHORUS: (the “Gloria” is protracted)

Sing, Gloria,

Your life is waiting just around the bend.

Play, Gloria,

That your story won’t ever end.

You might love it more than life itself

But your fiddle gathers dust on your daddy’s shelf

 


	3. John's Background Chapters

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had some extensive backstory worked up for John Watson, most of which involved his sister and what happened to the family farm. I always intended to post it later on in the story, but never got to that point. 
> 
> I’m including it here in its entirety. I was thinking to split it into two chapters, but that’s not really necessary for this. You’ll see where I thought the break should go. There’s some notes at the end of the chapter that should help explain where I was going with this storyline, and which will hopefully explain a little more fully why John Watson chose to shut himself away on Bill Murray’s farm.

Chapter Five: Doubts and Scars

 

(mary chapin carpenter house of cards)

 

(winter cover crop – oats, plant in fall and let run fallow, there’s little cleanup in spring before planting the soybeans.  Soybeans planted in spring, april-june, havest sept-nov, plant the oats.  Richard will think about using ryegrass as a cover crop at least partially, b/c it needs to be planted by end of Sept, and has even less cleanup than the oats.)

 

“Mama,” said John, all of eighteen and still a mix of scrawny and fit from football.  “I did it.”

 

Joanne Watson looked up from the sink in the kitchen where she scrubbed out the pot leftover from dinner the night before.  Her eyes were bright for a moment, but the grim expression on her son’s face slowly killed off the light in them until they were flat and dull.  Her shoulders slumped, and she turned back to the pot, scrubbing all the more furiously.

 

“Well,” she said.  “I suppose that’s that.”

 

“Mama…”

 

“It’s the right thing to do,” said Joanne in the voice she used when she didn’t want an argument, and was determined to agree in order to ensure it.  “When do you leave?”

 

“Three weeks after graduation.”

 

A pause, and then the _scritch-scritch_ of the brush against the pot continued.  “That’s planting.”

 

“I know, Ma.”

 

“Your father—“

 

“I know.”

 

Joanne looked up again.  “You’ll be home for Harry’s birthday.”

 

John nodded.  Joanne switched off the water and left the sponge floating in the pot.  She dried her hands on the nearby towel briskly, moving with sudden purpose.

 

“If that’s the case, we’ll have a party to plan, won’t we?”

 

“Mama – it’s Harry’s birthday, not a going away for me.”

 

“Why can’t it be both?”

 

“Because Harry’s _fifteen_ , she’ll want her own party.  And anyway – I don’t want one.  And Dad won’t want to throw me one.”

 

“I’m the party planner, not your father,” said Joanne firmly. 

 

“Ma, I don’t want you to waste your money—“

 

Joanne pointed a finger at John’s mouth, her own lips drawn in a thin line.  “Now hush.  Giving you a good memory to go off to war on, that’s not wasting money.  That’s money well spent.”

 

“It’s not war.  It’s boot camp, Ma.”

 

“Deviled eggs,” decided Joanne, and licked the pencil before she started to write.  “Do you like the chicken salad with grapes or walnuts?  Or is that Harry?  I cain’t remember.”

 

“Yes,” said John. 

 

Joanne scribbled a few more things down, still talking under her breath about ingredients and quantities and when best to put in an order at the local store to make sure there were enough drinks on the shelves that week.  “You know he always under-orders the pop, ‘specially with school being out and the Fourth comin’ on – oh, lordy, John.  You’ll miss Fourth of July.”

 

“Probably do something patriotic at boot camp,” said John.  “Dad in the barn?”

 

“Or in the field.”  Joanne looked up.  “Going to tell him now?  Before dinner?”

 

“Thinking if he has a few hours to mull it over…”

 

Joanne shook her head. 

 

John sighed.  “Well, if I tell him and he’s outside, at least our ears won’t be ringing for days when he shouts.”

 

“Don’t tell him near the house, you’ll set my chickens off their eggs,” advised Joanne, and left the list for further contemplation while she continued to scrub out the pot in the sink.

 

*

 

To most of the world, the air was warm and pleasant, reason enough to shed winter clothing despite it being February.  To anyone born and raised in southern Indiana, however, there was enough crispness in the air to warrant a heavier jacket, buttoned up halfway, if not all the way. 

 

John left his school sneakers behind, changing into his work boots for the walk out to the fields.  He could hear the tractor with the faulty transmission as clear as a bell; south field, where the last remaining field of wheat hadn’t been planted until just before Christmas.  Late, but it was the best they’d been able to do between the four of them – John, his father, and the two hired hands.  Richard Watson would be checking to see if the heads were developed enough to stop watering.  Bit early, thought John, but his father had his own way of doing things.

 

It was the only proper field, John thought to himself.  The rest of the fields looked scrawny and half-grown with their depressingly short cover crops of oats and barley, only intended for their ability to keep the soil ready for spring, and not for actual harvest.  The plants grew in neat little rows, and John hated them for their pointlessness.

 

Used to be the whole farm was wheat – wheat and pasture for the cows.  Now it was nothing but shrubs and soybeans, both as pointless as they were ugly, John thought.

 

The tractor was abandoned by the time John reached it.  He climbed up into the cab for a better look into the field.  There – about halfway down, dark hat bobbing along the filmy green stalks.  John hooked his arm around the tractor strut and waved the other, hoping to catch Richard’s attention.  He saw Richard’s dark hat tip up for a moment, pause, and then tip back down, continuing his examination of the stalks.

 

It was enough; John hopped down from the cab, and kicked the tires while he waited.

 

“Jack,” said Richard Watson, as he came out from the wheat.  “Three more weeks, best guess.”

 

“Well, we planted them late.  Couldn’t be much earlier.”

 

“A-yup,” said Richard, and turned to squint back at the field.  “Shouldn’t have planted them at all – won’t hardly have time to grow anything here come spring.”

 

John took a breath, and swallowed his courage.  “Brought you a lemonade.”

 

Richard glanced over at the offered drink, and took it without a word.  He drank half the bottle in a single gulp.  The lines in his face were darkened with dust and sweat despite the chill in the air, giving his skin a much darker look than it normally appeared, already leathery brown from sun exposure.  When he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, he sighed, and sounded almost content.

 

“Christ Almighty, that’s good.  Though you had something keeping you after school.”

 

“Done now.”

 

Richard glanced pointedly at his son.  “Could’ve used your help in the north field.”

 

“Thought we’d stopped watering there.”

 

“Stinkbugs,” said Richard bitterly, and John cringed.  He couldn’t help it.  “Three.”

 

“Do you think…?”

 

“We’ll see,” said Richard, and he didn’t sound overly concerned, just matter-of-fact.  John shoved his hands into his pockets and leaned against the tractor.  “Go on, then.”

 

“Huh?”

 

Richard twisted the cap back on the lemonade bottle.  “Bug in your brain, Jack, I can see it.  Decided about what you’re doing next year, have you?”

 

“Yeah,” said John.  “I have.”

 

Richard let out a long sigh.  “Wish you wouldn’t.  I could use your help here.  More’n Trevelyn wants you for a glorified lackey, fetching coffee and answering phones.”

 

_The internship_ , John remembered, the one the family doctor had offered him, meant to be for over the summer to help earn some money before college.  It wasn’t particularly what John had wanted to do with his life – answering phones and making appointments and helping file insurance claims – but it was in a doctor’s office and it had a paycheck.  And it wasn’t on the farm.  “It’s a job, Dad.  It pays actual money—“

 

“What do you think _that_ does?” said Richard, nodding at the field.  “I’m just giving it away?  Think that don’t earn your keep?”

 

“You really want an answer to that?”

 

Richard’s eyes narrowed.  “I didn’t teach you to be smart.”

 

“Sorry,” said John immediately, and let out a breath.

 

“It might not be food, but it’s important, what we’re growing.”

 

“I know, Dad.”

 

“Without soybeans the entire economy of agriculture in this country would have collapsed forty years ago.”

 

“Yeah, Dad, that’s what you’ve told me.”

 

“Soybeans are what saved this farm, boy – we’d have had to sell up just to pay off the debts a decade ago if I hadn’t made the switch—“

 

John had had enough.  “Yeah, and we’re not _still_ in debt, heck no!  We’re doing just _fine_ , thanks!”

 

“Jack—“ warned Richard.

 

“How’s that new stove of Ma’s, the one you got to replace the old one that cain’t heat up to more’n 375?  Harry sure loves that summer camp you send her to every year, don’t she?  And gosh, Dad, I’m so damn glad you can pay for college for me without having to ask for every goddamn handout from the Kiwanis and Lions and all those other organizations you don’t belong to.  Yeah, that was a great decision to switch to soybeans – livin’ on the hope that some big company’s gonna pay money for a crop we can’t possibly use ourselves, so if the price drops, we starve because we don’t actually _grow_ anything anybody else would want to buy from us.  Let alone feed ourselves.  Ever try to eat a soybean, Dad?  Kind of sticks in your gullet, but I hear it sits like a rock in your gut if you can ever get it there.”

 

Richard’s eyes were hard; his lips were pressed together in a thin line.  John could see his hands, one hand clenched in a tight fist, the other squeezing the lemonade bottle until it was nearly crushed. 

 

John braced himself for the punch that was sure to come.  The last time his father had laid a hand on him, he’d been eleven years old, and stolen a Snickers bar from the grocery store.  Return the candy, apologize to the manager, swept the floor with his father and the manager half watching, half discussing the recent football game, and then home, where Richard had switched his bare ass and then sent him to muck out the barn, which was as much the conclusion of the punishment as it was a way for John to cry to himself in privacy.  Had he been younger, John might have ignored the work and climbed up into the hay loft, to bury himself in the straw and wait for the sting to go away.  Instead, he worked his way through it, and ignored the tears running down his cheeks.

Richard turned, and walked a few feet away.  John, tense, watched, and waited.

 

“Well.  Cain’t say I didn’t know how you thought about it.”

 

_Seven years old and sobbing because the cows were sold off at auction.  Kept a few chickens, but who wanted a chicken, with their beady eyes and pointed beaks, and the quick way they’d peck at whatever you threw at them._

 

_It was years before the hay loft stopped smelling of hay, sweet and dry and dusty._

 

“He’ll work you to the bone, you know.  Trevelyn.  Won’t give you much of a raise, either.”

 

John hesitated.  “Dad—“

 

“Don’t suppose you could see yourself to be asking for time off to help with the harvest, though.”

 

“I signed up for the Army, Dad.”

 

Richard doesn’t move for a few long moments.  John breathes in the memory of the hay-smelling loft; soybeans don’t smell like anything except the chemicals used to make them grow.  Hay smelled sweet and clean, like fresh-grown grass, like newly turned dirt, like rain after a long, dry day. 

 

“The Army,” repeats Richard, flat.  “What about your precious office job, huh?”

 

“You know that’s not what I wanted.”

 

“I cain’t say I ever knew what you wanted, Jack.  Not since you were six.”  Richard reached into his back pocket and pulled out the half-squashed pack of cigarettes.  He tapped it against the palm of his hand before pulling one out.  “Bicycle.  Red.  First thing you did was attach the wagon and ride clear up and down the drive.”

 

The bicycle had been almost too big; in another three years, it was almost too small, but still held together strong, every bolt tightened and retightened by Richard, every time it started to wobble. 

 

“No training wheels, either, not even that first day.”

 

“I know, Dad.”

 

“Asked what you were doing, with that wagon.  ‘Farming.’  That’s what you told me.”

 

John sighed.  “That was eleven years ago, Dad.”

 

“Farm’s still here.”

 

“No, it’s not.  This ain’t been a farm in ten years.  Now it’s just a factory that feeds into other factories.”

 

Richard slowly put the cigarette pack back in his pocket, and pulled out the lighter.  His hands shook as he lit the cigarette.

 

“They’ll send you to war.”

 

“What war?”

 

“You think they won’t find another one?  That’s the thing with an Army – you got one, you got to find a reason to use it, or people won’t let you keep it no more.  Might not be a war now, but there’ll come one, make no mistake.  Send you off to some godforsaken country, send you home in a body bag, break your poor mama’s heart.  That your plan, Jack?”

 

John closed his eyes, thought of Joanne leaning against the doorway while some mythical officer delivered a black-bordered telegram.  Stupid.  That was only in the movies. 

 

“You know, I used to be so fuckin’ proud of you.  My dad, the farmer.  What’d you grow, wheat and barley?  And cows, and chickens, and I always thought I was living in heaven.  Carrots straight out of Mama’s garden, still warm.  Everyone else’s parents were all selling up or selling out, planting things that weren’t of no use to God or anybody, but not you.  Nope.”

 

“Times change.”

 

“Yeah, I know.  And you gotta change with the times.  That’s what you always said, wasn’t it?  ‘Cept we don’t eat soybeans, do we, Dad?  We’re still eating carrots but they’re packaged up from the grocery, and the eggs come cold in the fridge instead of in the grass, and the milk from the store don’t taste half as good as the milk from Bessie.”

 

Richard blew the smoke out in a long thin stream.

 

“I gotta go, Dad.  This – this is _your_ life.  Your choices.  Not mine.”

 

“So you’ll chose to die?”

 

“I’m choosing to _live_ , Dad.  Just…it might not be the way you’d want it, but it’s my life.  And I can’t live it here.”

 

“So go.”

 

“I am.”

 

“Then _git_.”  Richard took another drag on the cigarette, and blew the smoke out in rings.  “When?”

 

“End of June.”

 

“Cain’t even stay to help your old man out with the planting,” scoffed Richard.

 

“That’s when they want me, Dad.”

 

“Cain’t even be your own man in the Army.  You think it was bad, me bossing you this way and that?  You ain’t seen nothing until you get a 200-pound man screaming in your face to do another twenty push-ups.”

 

John pressed his lips together and didn’t say a word.

 

“Shit,” said Richard as the cigarette burned down to the nub, and he dropped it and ground it out with his boot, before kicking the dirt over it to make sure it didn’t start a fire. 

 

_Done_ , thought John.  And there’d been cruel words said, and a few barbs, but no shouting.  They could have had the conversation near the house after all, for all the raised voices that hadn’t occurred. 

 

Richard didn’t say anything, nor did he turn around to look at John again.  He looked out over the fields of soybeans.  Beautiful, in their own way, John supposed, but to him, they looked short, half the height of the wheat which ought to have been standing tall and proud, had been growing there since before Richard himself was born.

 

Richard’s hands were in his coat pockets, standing so perfectly still.  John knew, without seeing his face, that Richard’s eyes were closed, his mouth was settled in his frown.  He was breathing in the scent of the fields and the dirt and the wind.

 

John stood behind him, just a pace or two, and put his own hands in his pockets.  Settled into his stance, turned his face to the fields, and closed his eyes, and breathed.

 

Wind rustling through the leaves, brushing them against each other in a quiet hush.  Faint scent of dust and dirt, even fainter of the pigs from the farm next over.  Cool air on his cheeks, the breeze blowing through his hair.  The last rays of the sun in the hour before sunset, attempting to warm him without much success.

 

His father, breathing, not too far away.  Steady, even, the blood pumping through his veins, same man as since the day John was born.  John couldn’t imagine a world without Richard Watson on the farm, no matter what it grew.

 

“Used to stand here with my dad,” said Richard, and John opened his eyes. “How long is boot camp?”

 

“Nine weeks.  I’ll have a few weeks before I go on to my assignment, or further training.”

 

Richard adjusted his hat.  “September.  Harvest.”

 

“Yeah.   I can help with that.”

 

“Don’t want you to do anything beneath you,” said Richard dryly, and John sighed.

 

“Dad…”

 

“Git on home,” said Richard, gruffly, and turned back to the tractor in such a way that kept his face from John’s.  “You goin’ off to war, you better spend all the time with your mama.  She’s gonna miss you some.”

 

“I know.”

 

“Then you’d best be with her now, ain’t you?  I’m gonna check the other fields, tell your mama I’ll be home near dinnertime.”

 

“Okay, Dad,” said John, without bothering to say that his mother already knew Richard’s daily routine.

 

He waited until his father was gone before turning around to give the soybean field one last glance, before heading back to the house.  The sun was setting fast; John would have to hustle to make it back to the house before twilight.  It’d be full dark before Richard finished his rounds, which was just as well.  Despite Richard trying his best, John had caught a glimpse of his face anyway, and Richard’s eyes had been red.

 

*

 

As predicted, Richard grumbled about the expense of a party.  Harry complained about having to share her party with her brother, until she realized it meant more people in attendance, and therefore, the possibility of more presents.  Joanne sighed briefly about all the work to be done, but then put her nose to the grindstone and did it, so John didn’t think she minded too much.

 

It was a good party.  The best, John thought afterwards.  Streamers and balloons, and Jeannette had cornered John behind the barn and kissed him so thoroughly he’d fallen down once she’d let go.  She had the prettiest laugh, and he’d grinned, a bit embarrassed, but she’d run, and he was chasing her when the football team had pulled him in the direction of the game.  He didn’t protest.

 

Devilled eggs with apples, pasta salad, three kinds of rolls, cold cuts, cheese and mustard, at least half a dozen casseroles, chicken salad with grapes and walnuts, fried chicken, baked chicken, dumplings, jello molds with bananas suspended in the center, all jiggling every time someone dug into another serving dish for another helping.  7-Up punch, the sort with the tri-color sorbet floating in the center, and another kind of punch that was spiked for the adults.  John saw Harry sneak some with her friends, and grinned because they thought they were being subtle.  The rest of the adults saw, smiled good-naturedly, and let them continue to pretend the subterfuge was successful. 

 

Horseshoes and games of hide-and-seek, kids swinging from the rope in the barn, landing on the piles of hay from three farms over.  A row of old men, staring at the fun, wishing they weren’t so darn tired; a line of old women, still carrying plates back and forth between the tables set outside in the yard to the kitchen, tired but still having work to do. 

 

The best, remembered John, just warm enough with a breeze, and enough cloud cover that the occasional bursts of sunshine were better appreciated.

 

That was how John would remember it.  The laughter and the old men saying “a-yup” and the old women rolling their eyes and the children tumbling everywhere; Harry giggling at her first sip of punch and Jeannette running away from him, laughing, while he tried to get his bearings, happy enough that he wanted to hold her down and just breathe in the moment.

 

*

 

“So,” said Richard at the airport drop-off in Indianapolis.  The truck looked out of place next to the shiny sedans and the stretch limo.  Richard, in his good boots and his cowboy hat, looked about as comfortable as a cat sitting on a rattlesnake.  “Got everything?”

 

“Yeah,” said John, hefting the Army-green duffel in his hands.  “Weren’t much I’m allowed to bring, anyway.  Get the rest of my kit there.”

 

“Here,” said Richard, and reached out as if to shake John’s hand.  John took it, his heart sinking at the quick, emotionless goodbye, and found himself holding a thick fold of money instead.  “Your mama insisted.”

 

“Dad,” said John, staring at the fold.  “This is too much.  What am I gonna spend it on, anyway?  They’ll feed and clothe me, that’s part of the deal.”

 

“You’ll find things.”

 

“Dad—“

 

“Take it,” said Richard gruffly.  “Or your mama will have my hide.”

 

“Okay,” said John finally, and he slipped the money into his pocket.  “Tell her…thanks.”

  
“Yup,” said Richard, and he glanced at the cars around him.  “Best be going.  Don’t want to miss your flight.”

 

“Right,” said John, but neither of them moved, except for the shuffling Richard couldn’t seem to stop, the shifting back and forth from foot to foot.

 

Five years old, thought John.  That was the last time he could remember sitting in his father’s lap, arms around him, enclosed in the pale light from the lamp as they read a story.  John couldn’t remember the story.  Only the feel of his father’s heart beating against his cheek.

 

“Well,” said John, just wanting the moment to end.

 

“Stay safe, John,” said Richard, and turned abruptly to get back into the truck.

 

John let out a wry chuckle – of course.  Of course.  He waited until his father had pulled into traffic before heading into the terminal to check in.

 

It wasn’t until the desk clerk asked for his name that he realized Richard hadn’t called him by the name he’d used since before John could remember. 

 

Instead, Richard had called him _John_.

 

*

 

Richard Watson hadn’t been wrong about basic training.  From the moment he arrived, John was ordered to wake, piss, shower, dress, run, eat, read, listen, study, climb, assemble, disassemble, fall in, fall out, march, _hoo-ah_.  The only thing John had to remember to do on his own was breathe.  In some ways, the farm had given John a great deal more freedom – at least he could decide on his own whether he started planting the north end of the field or the south – but at least the Army didn’t make promises it couldn’t deliver, unlike seed prices and weather reports.

 

All the same, John appreciated the consistency.  Rain or shine, the schedule didn’t alter.  There were no tense mornings staring out the window at a field of money being drowned by fate. 

 

John took his orders with good grace, looked out for his fellow recruits, and never shirked fire patrol or latrine or KP.  He didn’t run the fastest, or shoot the straightest, or climb the wall with the most grace, but though he came in with only a rudimentary understanding of poker, he came out with an uncanny ability to understand when everyone else was bluffing, and when they weren’t, which made him a pretty good player overall, though he never managed to bluff with any degree of competency himself. 

 

In the end, John earned the respect of every one of his drill sergeants, if not the friendship of his fellow recruits.  John tried not to mind.  He wasn’t in it for the friends.

 

“Hey, Watson!”

 

John zipped up his duffel bag in one smooth motion as he looked up.  Another one of the recruits stood in the doorway, grinning at him.  Even after months of training and enforced solidarity, though, it took a moment for John to recognize him.

 

“Stamford?”

 

“The glasses, right?”  Stamford reached up and wiggled the thin metal frames.  “My own pair.”

 

“What happened to the Army-issue?”

 

“So sad.  Accidentally broke when I dropped the corner of my trunk on them.”

 

John chuckled.  “If Sarge sees…”

 

“What’s he going to do?  We graduated this morning, man, it’s not like he’s going to make me do push-ups.”

 

John snorted and shook his head, still smiling.

 

“We’re going for lunch in town.  There’s this great barbecue place, my parents ate there last night.”

 

“Nah, it’s okay.”  John lifted the duffel up to his shoulder. 

 

“You sure?  I know it’s not like having your own family here, but—“

 

Stamford meant well, but it still stung.  “I have a bus to catch,” said John shortly.  “Thanks, though.”

 

“Yeah, sure,” said Stamford, a bit deflated, and he leaned against one of the bunk beds as John headed out.  “You never said, where’s your AIT?”

 

John paused.  “Fort Sam Houston, San Antonio.”

 

Stamford whistled.  “Didn’t know you were a doctor.”

 

“I’m not.  They’re training me to be a combat medic.” 

 

Stamford laughed.  “Yeah, I can see that, the way you wrapped up Franklin’s knee.”

 

John shrugged.  “Basic first aid.  The farm’s kind of far out of town, and a lot of the equipment is sharp.”  He paused, and shifted the duffel on his shoulder; it was heavy, but not terrible just yet – and Stamford was the first person to actually seem to _want_ to talk to John.  “What about you?”

 

Stamford laughed.  “You really do live in your own head, don’t you?  I’m going to the music school in Virginia Beach, and then they’ll assign me to one of the bands.”

 

John frowned as he remembered the strains of music during the evening free time at the end of every day: strains of music – a guitar, playing everything from Kenny Rogers to Carlos Santana to the Beatles.  “That was you playing?”

 

“Me,” confirmed Stamford with a bit of pride. 

 

“Since when do bands have guitars?”

 

“Fuck off,” said Stamford pleasantly.  “I killed ‘em at my audition.”

 

“They could have used you in Kuwait,” countered John, and Stamford grinned even wider.  John couldn’t help but grin back.

 

Stamford put out his hand.  “Small Army – hope we’ll run into each other again sometime, John Watson.”

 

John hesitated only a moment, mostly to make sure he had his balance before letting go of his duffel strap.  He couldn’t remember Stamford’s name, if he ever knew it at all.  Something of a shocker to realize Stamford knew his.  “Yeah,” he said, and shook Stamford’s hand.  “Say hi to the President for me when you get to Washington.”

 

Stamford laughed.  “Yeah, sure.  I’m not _that_ good.  Take care, Watson.”

 

The taxi waited for him at the gate; John tossed the duffel in the seat next to him, and watched Columbia breeze by as he sped to the bus depot. 

 

_I grew up in a town like this_

_We knew the name of every street_

_On the surface it looked so safe_

  
“Where you heading, son?”

 

John shook his attention from the passing tree-lined streets, the little clapboard buildings that could have been there since the Civil War.  “Hmm?”

 

“Just graduated from Basic, didn’t you?”

 

“Yes, sir.  Texas for a few years more of training.  Med school.”

 

“Doctor, are you?”

 

John shook his head.  “No, sir.  Just an Army medic.”

 

“No such thing as ‘just an anything’, son, not in the Army.”

 

John thought of Mike Stamford and his guitar.  “Guess not, sir.”

 

The driver went on, and John let the soft accent wash over him.  Bus to Indiana, three weeks helping with the harvest.  Then bus to Texas, and the four months in the combat medic course.

 

After that, John had no idea.

 

“We’re here,” said the driver as the taxi pulled up to the bus depot.  John fumbled for his wallet, but the driver waved him off.  “No charge.  Wouldn’t feel right, taking your money, son.”

 

John folded the twenty he’d already extracted from his wallet.  “You sure, sir?”

 

“A’course.  Don’t like to see you young fellows on such an important day, without any family around.”

 

“Harvest,” said John.  “Hard time to get off the farm.”

 

The driver nodded sagely.  “Ain’t that the truth.  Still.”  He reached over the seat, offering his hand to shake.  “Just wanted to say thank you for your service, young man.”

 

John blinked hard.  “I haven’t really served yet.”

 

“I won’t get another chance,” said the driver, and John took his hand, palming him the twenty.  “Now, son, I told you—“

 

“Tip,” said John firmly.

 

When the man smiled, the skin around his eyes crinkled.  “See they don’t send you anywhere people can shoot at you, son.”

 

_But it was perilous underneath_

 

“No, sir,” said John, and hefted the duffel onto his shoulder to head for home.

 

*

 

The bus left Columbia just after three, driving into the sunset.  The bus driver shook John awake some five hours later just outside Atlanta.

 

“End of the line, son,” she said kindly, and John shook his head to clear it of sleep, thanked her, and went into the station to wait two hours for the bus that would take him the rest of the way home.  


The sun rose in Kentucky.  John woke with his eyelids glowing red, and pulled the shades down, but was unable to return to sleep.  The sky was clear and blue, promising a picture-perfect day.  John dozed the rest of the way, and woke, a bit bleary, when the bus finally pulled into Indianapolis, only a little bit late. 

 

Bus depots weren’t usually the quietest of locations; noisy with children, angry travelers, busy with people just wanting to get from one place to the other with as little fuss as possible, and never managing to quite avoid it.

 

The station, when John and his fellow passengers entered, however, was quiet as a tomb, except for the televisions playing some kind of disaster movie.  John frowned, looking for a familiar face, and finally spotted the back of Harry’s head, near one of the television screens.

 

Harry.  The last two months of loneliness came on John in a rush; he loved his little sister, but all of a sudden he was happier than he’d ever been his entire life to see her.

 

“Aw, come on, Hare,” he said, unable to keep the happiness from his voice.  “Nine weeks learning to be a soldier; aren’t you even going to give me a hug hello?”

 

Harry turned to him, eyes red and already spilling over with tears.  She took one look at him, her mouth trembling, and threw her arms around his neck and squeezed tight.

 

_Richard.  Or Joanne.  Or…_

 

“Who?” John managed to say.

 

“Oh, God,” whispered someone nearby, and then John looked up to the television screens just in time to see the North Tower of the World Trade Center fall.

 

*

 

CHAPTER BREAK?

 

*

 

Worlds would end and towers would fall, but harvest continued, and John worked through the end of September harder than he’d done in his entire life, if for no other reason than it made conversation with difficult.  Joanne was up every morning before sunrise, cooking up breakfast for her men, eggs and ham and toast and bacon and thousands of cups of coffee, and John tried not to look at her, because she couldn’t take her eyes off him, not for a moment.  Her eyes said everything, which was just as well, because her heart probably would have said too much.

 

In the fields, it was John and Richard and three hired hands, working hell-for-leather to bring in the soybeans before the cold snap.   John thought the hired hands knew he was in the Army, in the way they looked at him, and said nothing, and when he tried to talk to them about football or baseball or the weather or anything – they were too kind, agreeing with everything, and he could see it in their faces.

 

_You’re going to war now.  You might be dead in a year_.

 

So John put his head down, and worked.  He was first up, first out, first in the fields.  He ate when food was handed to him, drank when there was water, sat with everyone else, twitching to get back into the fields.  At the end of the day, he went back to the house and ate the food on the table, avoided his mother’s eyes, listened to Harry try to tell them about school that day in a futile effort to bring life back to the table. 

 

He should have helped her, should have asked her questions, should have teased her about the boys in her class who were desperate to ask her out, should have quizzed her on math or chemistry, should have asked her opinion on the Salinger book she was reading for English.  Should have tried to bring Joanne back into the conversation, to give Richard something else to think about, but he couldn’t.  He only saw her at the dinner table, or in the fields on weekends when she wasn’t in school, but even then she was resentful with exhaustion, trying to be _normal_ in order to keep them all sane.

 

He’d try tomorrow, he told himself every night as he collapsed into the bed.  He could hear Harry’s radio playing in her room as she studied.  He could hear Joanne playing the piano in the living room.   Richard never made a sound, wherever he was.  Tomorrow, he’d ask Harry about her day tomorrow.

 

He never did.

 

Richard was already in the fields the day John left for Texas.  Joanne was so angry she could have spit.

 

“He should be here,” she said, and glared out at the fields, where the storm clouds were beginning to gather.

 

“Ma, it’s okay.  It’s gonna storm, he should get as much in as he can first.”

 

“It’s _not_ okay.  You won’t be here for Thanksgiving or Christmas, we don’t even know where you’re going next.”

 

“Ma, it’s _fine_.  He’s busy.”

 

But Joanne had already turned to Harry.  “Harry, go bring your father in.”

 

“No, Harry, stop.  We said goodbye last night,” said John, almost desperately.

 

Joanne peered at him with her sharp eyes, and for a moment, John thought she’d see through the lie. 

 

“You’ve got money?” she asked curtly.

 

“Yes, Ma.”

 

“Sandwiches,” said Joanne suddenly, her voice thick, and she spun around and went straight into the house. 

 

John slumped the moment she was gone, letting out a long sigh.

 

“Liar.”

 

John’s eyes sprung open; Harry hadn’t moved from the porch. 

 

“You didn’t talk to Dad last night.  Not apart from saying goodnight.”

 

“Let it go, Hare,” said John, tired.

 

Harry shrugged.  “Fine.”

 

All the empty promises… “Thanks for letting me share your party in June, Harry.”

 

Harry frowned at him; her eyes were nearly as sharp and accusatory as Joanne’s.  “You don’t even know, do you?”

 

“Know what?”

 

Harry snorted, and looked away as Joanne came back out, carrying a bulging brown paper sack.  “Sandwiches for your trip – peanut butter and cream cheese, just as you like.”

 

“Thanks, Ma,” said John, taking the bag.  He glanced back at Harry, still not looking at him, and reached over to kiss Joanne’s cheek.  “I’ll write.”

 

“I know,” said Joanne, and watched him go.  John glanced back as the car pulled out of the drive and onto the road; Joanne still stood on the porch, watching him.  John imagined her standing there the rest of the day, watching the road, waiting for him to return.

 

*

 

San Antonio was warm, not that John noticed; he spent most of the time indoors, learning advanced first aid and triage and trauma care.  He learned how to tie a tourniquet properly and practiced it on every limb.  He learned how to insert a shunt from a nurse who was probably a bit more excited than he really should have been about the prospect of shoving a tube into a person’s leg, and the first time he performed a tracheotomy, he almost threw up. 

 

Sixteen weeks flew, and at the end of them, he didn’t feel as though he’d prepared well enough for combat at all. 

 

He had four days after graduation; it wasn’t going to be nearly enough, so he toured the Alamo and took a road trip to the casinos in xxx and managed to double one of his paychecks, which was the most money he’d won in a game in his life, and he got cocky and lost it all and went back to the barracks even broker than he’d started.  He called home and talked to Joanne and to Harry, told them he’d only had 48 hours and they believed him, and then he boarded the flight to Frankfurt, Germany, and his heart pounded the entire way. 

 

It was exactly one year to the day that he’d signed his name on the dotted line in the recruitment office back in Indianapolis, not that John remembered at the time, or realized until later. 

 

Three weeks later, he saw combat for the first time.

 

*

 

And the years passed, bullets whizzing all around and the blood and the gauze and the dust and the wind and the pretty German boys and the pretty daughters of American generals, the friendly poker games and the not-so-friendly players.  John bounced between Frankfurt and Afghanistan and a stint in Iraq and a brief six weeks in Korea, where he ate kimchee and listened to other Army medics talk about advances in combat medicine and front line warfare, and the modern army and modern medical miracles and how all of this related to him.  He took notes and asked questions and went home, and eventually, used what he’d learned to save a few more lives long enough for them to get to the operating table.

 

He was promoted and re-enlisted, he was promoted again and sent to the front lines again, he smiled at the teenaged daughters on base and met up with the German boys behind the clubs in dark alleyways, and as long as no one asked, he wasn’t going to tell.

 

He wrote to Joanne and read Harry’s replies.  He read the farming news in the American papers when he could find them, and when he bought a laptop with his poker winnings, he looked up weather reports and soybean sales. 

 

Small Army – he ran into Stamford twice, both times while Stamford was touring with the USO through Afghanistan.  John, in a burst of friendly feeling, found Stamford after the first show and they had drinks; the second show, they had dinner beforehand.  It was only vaguely uncomfortable, and when Stamford told him he was getting out and going into music production in Nashville, John was almost relieved.

 

There were others.  Murray, the combat medic from Oklahoma, friendly and cheerful and too close to a IED, tinnitus so bad he was sent to Frankfurt to work in one of the hospitals there until it cleared up.

 

[names of soldiers fallen]

 

Five years, and it all ended with the burn of a bullet through his shoulder, the roar of silence in his ears, the dust and dirt and rocks of Afghanistan cradling him as he bled into the earth, staring up at the bright blue sky overhead, and thinking it looked exactly the same as Indiana.

 

*

 

“John, John…John, buddy, stay with me, okay?  Stay with me.  You’re gonna be all right.  You’re gonna…oh shit…”

 

*

 

He opened his eyes on the plane somewhere over Turkey.

 

“Hey, bud,” said the familiar voice, and John stared up at the interior curve of the C-5, the sound of the engines loud and awful in the cavernous space.  “Welcome back to the world of the living.  I’ve got morphine if you need more of a hit.”

 

Murray.  Which meant he wasn’t in Afghanistan anymore.  Which meant he wasn’t dead.

 

“No,” said John, or thought he said it.  He couldn’t hear his voice in the noise.

 

He heard the other person moving, rather than saw them, the shuffle and clang of boots on the grated floor, the rasp of military-issue clothes rubbing against itself. 

 

John closed his eyes, and dreamed of the drone of planes.

 

*

 

_Dusty days into dusty nights_

_Blood into dust meaning no one’s right_

_The dark that settles doesn’t fade into light_

_Blood bleeds into dust until I’m bled out white._

 

*

 

Humming.  Someone was humming.  John opened his eyes in a hospital in Bethesda, which could have been a hospital in Frankfurt for all he knew, except that the he vaguely remembered the flight from Frankfurt to Andrews.  His shoulder was burning – nothing new there – and his leg was heavy with the cast.  He opened his eyes and tried to sit up.

 

The hum stopped abruptly.

 

“Oh, here, I’ll help,” offered the nurse, and she helped him rearrange the pillows so he was sitting up.  “Just in time, I thought you’d have to miss lunch again.  And it’s good tonight, Salisbury steak and potatoes.  If you’re hungry.”

 

John wasn’t, particularly, but he knew that skipping lunch would only mean another stern talk from the doctors about how he had to keep up his strength if he was going to get better.

 

He wasn’t entirely sure of the _point_.  He knew what was coming.

 

The nurse began humming again as she reached over to set his collapsible table in place.  The melody sounded almost familiar.

 

“What’s that song?” asked John.

 

The nurse laughed.  “You tell me – you were humming it before you woke up.”

 

John frowned. “ _You_ were, just now.”

 

“Well, it’s catchy.”  The nurse set the tray of food in front of him.  “Maybe you heard it on the radio.”

 

John waited until the nurse had gone, and rested his head back against the pillows.  He ignored the lukewarm patty with brown sauce and instant powdered potatoes, and instead tried to remember the tune he’d apparently been humming in his sleep.

 

_Dusty weeks into dusty years_

_Dusty trails left by dusty tears_

_I bleed out dust from my eyes and my ears_

_Blood into dust is my souvenir._

 

It was terrible, really.  John’s fingers itched, and opening his eyes, he found the call button near the bed and began to press it rapidly.

 

The nurse popped in after a few minutes.  “Goodness, hold your horses!” she exclaimed, out of breath.  “Did you want more to eat?”

 

“I was hoping for a pencil and some paper?”

 

The nurse eyed the still-full tray of food.  “You haven’t eaten anything, Sergeant,” she said, with a warning tone that John recognized from growing up.  He grinned at her. 

 

“You sound like my mom.”

 

“You sound like my four-year-old,” countered the nurse.  “And I’ll make you the same deal I make with him: eat your supper, and I’ll bring you pencil and paper.  No supper, no supplies.”

 

John speared the food with his fork and obediently popped it into his mouth.  The nurse crossed her arms and waited.

 

“I’m good,” said John around the mouth full of food.

 

But the nurse was nobody’s fool.  “Chew and swallow.”

 

John did, and grimaced.  The nurse nodded briskly and went to leave.  “And don’t think I won’t check all the usual hiding places, either!” she called back over her shoulder before disappearing into the hall.

 

_Daylight on dust is the world’s refrain_

_No sign of the blood I bled left to remain_

_Thought I’d leave a mark, haven’t left a stain_

_All that was of me washed away with rain._

 

John was halfway through the potatoes, which were at least not quite as rubbery as the steak, before the nurse returned.  She inspected the tray with what more or less passed as approval, and traded it for a brand-new black-and-white composition book, and several mechanical pencils.

 

John rested his hand on the new notebook and gave her a quizzical look.  The nurse shrugged with a smile. 

 

“You’d be surprised how many of you boys ask for paper and pencils when you wake up.”

 

John thought he probably wouldn’t, but opened the notebook anyway, and reached for the pencils. 

 

He wasn’t thinking about it; he wasn’t even really paying much attention, so when the pencil fell right out of his fingers, he just frowned and reached for it again.  And again, the pencil clattered to the tray, having really only barely left it in the first place.

 

John stared at the pencil, and tried a third time.  This time, he concentrated.  He thought, hard about how his fingers touched the smooth plastic of the pencil, how the plastic felt as it slid right against his skin to fall back down to the tray, as if he’d only really meant to nudge the object, and not pick it up.

 

It took another few minutes before he figured out how to pick up the pencil, using his thumb as a lever, and it took both his hands to maneuver the pencil into a position for writing – and even then, he couldn’t hold it steady enough to produce anything more than a rather shaky line, let alone the swoops and swirls of letters.

 

John stared at his useless hand, the series of lines on the otherwise flawless paper, and watched the pencil slide through his fingers to land on the tray again. 

 

*

 

LAST NAME WATSON

FIRST NAME JOHN

MIDDLE NAME HAMISH

DEPARTMENT ARMY, 5TH NORTH FUS MED

RANK SERGEANT

REASON FOR DISCHARGE MEDICAL

DATE 12-15-2006

 

*

 

Harry waited by the benches.  She wasn’t watching the televisions; instead, she stood facing the door, her hands shoved in the pockets of her coat, staring straight ahead.  He stopped in front of her, working his jaw as he leaned heavily on the cane.

 

“Do you get a handicapped sticker with that?” asked Harry.

 

“I could.”

 

Harry nodded, and swallowed.  “Should warn you – Ma’s been cooking up a storm.  Reckon you could use it, though, I can count your ribs through your coat.”

 

“She done cryin’ yet?”

 

Harry snorted.  Joanne had spent every phone call since he’d woken up at Walter Reed crying. 

 

John sighed.  “Right.  You parked in the next county over, I assume?”

 

“Of course,” said Harry, and led the way.

 

It took half an hour to get out of Indianapolis.  John watched the billboards and the buildings, listened to the mostly-pop-music country on the radio, and tried to pretend the non-conversation was comfortable.  It was, mostly, except for the nagging sensation that Harry did actually want to talk.  She would shift in her seat whenever the traffic slowed down, her movements sharp and pointed, and then she’d cough, or swallow, or make some kind of noise as if trying to insert a little life into the strange non-silent silence.

 

The truck picked up speed as they reached the edge of town, entering the flat fields of winter cover crops.  With nothing to see out of the window anymore, John decided to put Harry out of her misery.

 

“How’s the not-boyfriend?  Clarence, right?”

 

Harry stiffened.  “Fine,” she said shortly.

 

“Am I going to meet him?”

 

Harry shrugged.

 

John glanced out the window again.  “Dad doing all right?”

 

“Mostly.”

 

“The farm?”

 

“Cover crops are in.  Hired hands are all gone.  Dad didn’t want you to feel bad about not being able to help.”

 

John frowned.  “I can help.”

 

Harry snorted.  “John.  You’re using a cane and you couldn’t even hold a pencil without months of therapy.  And you’re going to honestly tell me you can work in the field all day?”

 

“I can whack you over the head with my cane, that’s what I can do.”

 

“Great, I’ll just run the truck off the highway; the insurance check might help pay for the heating this winter.”

 

John clenched his fist on his knees; the nerves prickled and tingled.  _Pringle_ , the trainer had called it, that odd sort of floaty feeling, a bit like when a limb was asleep and just coming back to life.  It had been a joke in rehab, with cans of Pringles in various horrific flavors procured by grateful patients who went traveling the world. 

 

“Money tight?” said John, carefully modulating his voice so as not to betray anything.

 

Harry laughed.  “What else is new?  Welcome to American agriculture.”

 

“How bad?”

 

Harry shook her head.

 

“Harry.  Hare.  _Harriet_.”

 

Harry sighed.  “I’m not supposed to tell you.  It’s bad.  It’s really bad.  Dad took a second mortgage out on the house.”

 

John sighed and rubbed his face.  “Christ.”

 

“Three years ago.”

 

“What?  Why didn’t—“

 

“Oh, come on, John!  You were in _Korea_ , two jumps from the DMZ.  And all those stupid _So your son is in a war zone_ guides say don’t tell your soldier news they can’t do anything about, and God knows you can’t do anything about Dad’s stupid-ass decisions about the farm, or we would have gone organic twenty years ago like Ma wanted and we’d be sitting pretty right now.  Do you know how much people will pay for organic eggs?  Shit.”

 

“Ma wanted organic?”

 

“Don’t you ever pay attention?  I was six, and I knew that.”

 

John sighed and rested his head back.  “He should have listened to her.”

 

“He should have listened to her about a lot of things.  Anyway, it’s done and it’s not like either of us are useful; he’d probably rather have the insurance money.”

 

“Harry.”

 

“It’s true.”

 

“It’s _not_ true.”

 

Harry snorted.

 

“Anyway, you could always marry Clarence and pop out a few kids.  Free labor.”

 

Harry’s knuckles went white on the steering wheel.  She stared straight ahead at the road, lips pressed tightly together.  John, looking at her, realized he’d hit a sore spot, though he wasn’t sure what the spot was, exactly.

 

“Wait.  Are you and Clarence…?”

 

“Clara,” Harry blurted out, and the car sped up a little bit.

 

“Huh?”

 

“Not Clarence.  _Clara_.  My not-boyfriend.”

 

John blinked, squeezed his eyes shut tightly, and then starred at Harry some more.  “I thought when you said Clarence was your not-boyfriend, you meant…”

 

“That he was still a boy?  Nah.  Convenient use of semantics.  So you see how marrying Clara and popping out a few free farm hands is a little bit tricky.”

 

“Yeah,” said John, a bit dazed, and he stared at the road in front of them, his somewhat shocked expression matching the determined gaze on Harry’s face.  He was quiet for a moment.  “Didn’t Dad use to inseminate the cows?”

 

“ _Oh my God, John_ ,” Harry exclaimed, and John began to giggle, unable to stop.  “Stop it.  _Stop it_.  I just came out to you and all you can do is _joke_?”

 

“You’re driving the truck, Harry, I’m not exactly going to condemn you, you’d run us off the road!”

 

“I might still!”

 

“Does that make me Thelma, or Louise?”  And John doubled over, laughing.

 

“I hate you, I really hate you,” said Harry fervently.  “I don’t know why I told you.”

 

“Because otherwise I’d be bothering you about _Clarence_ for the rest of your life,” said John, and sat up.  “Do Mom and Dad know?”

 

“Ma and Clara have a running conversation about pie crust,” said Harry.

 

John nodded.  “And Dad?”

 

Harry didn’t say anything for a moment.  “He knows,” she said finally, and John had an idea how Richard might have felt about it.

 

“I don’t care, you know,” he said quietly. 

 

“I didn’t.”

 

“Well, I don’t.  For the record.  Wish you hadn’t lied about it, though.”

 

“Well, I didn’t know what you’d think,” countered Harry.  “Stupid Army recruit, probably all macho and thinking you’re God’s gift to women.”

 

“I am.”

 

“Shut up.  I remember you in high school, flirting with every girl you saw.  You even flirted with Clara once.”

 

“Wait, I _know_ her?”

 

“Didn’t say that.  She was at that party we had right before you left.  Pink cut-offs, below the knee, and this blue and yellow checkered shirt, she’d tied the tails at her waist…”  Harry went dreamy for a moment, a smile on her face, remembering.

 

John couldn’t place her.  “Did she flirt back?”

 

“Not with you,” said Harry smugly, and then reached over to smack his arm.  “And you don’t even _remember_ her.  Jerk.”

 

“Hey, that was a really busy party.”

 

“Yeah, real busy, behind the barn with…who was it?  Do you even _remember_?”

 

“Jeannette Sanderson.”

 

Harry rolled her eyes.  “Married, with number two on the way.”

 

“Married?  To who?”

 

“Tom something.”

 

“Oh, good, glad to see all the girls I flirt with don’t turn into lesbians.”

 

“I am _so_ running you off the road.”

 

“And I’m insulted that you think I’d actually care that you’re gay, Harry.  Just because I’m in the Army doesn’t mean I’m a Neanderthal or that I subscribe to the stupid don’t-ask-don’t-tell policy.  You forget, I’m not out there trying to protect just a segment of the American population, I’m protecting _all_ of it, including you and Clara and every fucking poof out in Hollywood.  You really think I’m going to disown you as my sister just because you like ladies?”

 

Harry swallowed.  “No,” she said, small. 

 

“Then why’d you lie to me?”

 

Harry sighed.  “I don’t know.  I just...I was lying to Mom and Dad, too, you know.  It was just easier.  You know Dad.  He’s…well, he’s _old_.  He had a boy and a girl and he expected you to grow up and marry a nice girl and take over the farm and me to marry a nice boy and pop out a few grandkids, and he’d get to retire and maybe take Mom to Europe, and they’d see all the fantastic things there and hate everything and bring home postcards and stories about how Europe was awful.  Except he didn’t get that, he got you in the Army because you don’t want the farm at all, and no money for trips to Europe, ever.  So maybe I wanted to let him just…pretend, you know?  That _something_ was working out the way he’d wanted it to.  I did that for _years_.  And it just…it just got to be too much.  I couldn’t do it anymore.”

 

“When did you tell them?”

 

“Two years ago.”

 

“ _Two years…_ Jesus _Christ_ , Harry, you’ve been lying to me for two years?”  John sat back up, glaring at Harry as best he could.

 

“I wanted to tell you to your face, okay?  And you were supposed to come home two years ago, don’t you remember?  And then there was that shoe bomber guy, and your flight was cancelled, and you couldn’t get home at all.”

 

John sighed, remembering.  “Yeah.  Right.”

 

“It just seemed _easier_.  And okay, maybe I was a _little_ scared of what you’d say or do.  But telling you over the phone or in a letter just seemed like a cowardly way out, and I’m not a coward.  Clara thinks I’m an idiot, anyway.  She says I should have told you when I told Mom and Dad.”

 

“Knew I liked Clara.”

 

“You don’t even _remember_ Clara.”

 

“I wouldn’t have flirted with her if I didn’t like her.”

 

“You liked her bare stomach, that’s what you liked.”

 

“Well, apparently so do you, so I wouldn’t be talking so fast.”

 

“Oh, fuck off.”

 

“You kiss Clara with that mouth?  Oh, wait, you do.”

 

“I still hate you.”

 

“Mutual,” said John, and leaned back in the seat.  “So.  One lesbo and one Army reject.  Maybe Dad _would_ rather have the insurance money.”

 

“More or less what I’m thinking, yeah.”

 

“Ma would miss us.”

 

Harry shrugged.  “Most days I think Ma likes Clara better, anyway.”

 

“Ma’s got good taste.  Organic, huh?”

 

“Four bucks for a dozen eggs,” said Harry wistfully.

 

John’s eyes popped.  “Fuck.”

 

“Yup.  And a lot of the farms nearby aren’t official organic, even – they just follow all the rules and don’t both with the certification, ‘cause that shit’s expensive.  So they’re organic, without the label, and don’t charge as much and still doing all right.”

 

_Four bucks for a dozen eggs_ …minus the cost of feed and shelter and the pain in the ass with chickens.  Which still was less trouble than a field of soybeans, to John’s mind.  “How bad is it, Harry?  Honestly.”

 

“Bad.”

 

“ _How_ bad?”

 

Harry let a few miles go by before she answered.  “Can you mortgage a farm a third time?”

 

John closed his eyes.  “Shit.”

 

“Yeah.”

 

Harry turned the truck off the highway and onto one of the country roads – two lanes, but they were the only ones on it.  John watched as the fields continued to race by, unending, straight into the horizon. 

 

“One thing, though,” he said finally.  “At least the Watson streak of being God’s gift to women goes unbroken.”

 

And Harry laughed.

 

*

 

Much to John’s surprise, Joanne hadn’t cried when he arrived home.  It was obvious she’d _been_ crying, from the red in her eyes, but she didn’t cry when he could see; she simply tsked over his ribcage and sat him down in the kitchen and proceeded to feed him.  He wasn’t hungry, but he tried to eat anyway. 

 

Richard watched him, saying nothing, and after a protracted meal in which Joanne didn’t sit down for more than half a minute at a time, John followed him out to the fields.  It was slow going over the frozen ground, struggling with the cane and the cold biting at his shoulder, and it was clear to John that Richard had slowed down for John’s benefit. 

 

“Winter wheat?” asked John.

 

“And barley,” said Richard, and they stopped at the edge of the east field.  It was strangely warm that day; John hadn’t bothered to button the top of his coat and the cool air felt good on his throat, even if it did make his shoulder twinge painfully. 

 

John nodded.  “Dad…”

 

“You’re home now, Jack,” Richard interrupted.  “That’s enough.”

 

John stared at his father for a moment, and then turned back to the fields, and breathed.

 

*

 

He saw the advertisement in the paper about a week later.  It took another few days to convince Joanne that despite the leg, he was perfectly all right to drive, and he’d be happy to go into town and pick up the milk and deliver the eggs to the co-op and he needed to do a few things anyway.

 

“What _things_?” asked Harry.

 

“A new phone, for one,” said John.  “And unless you want me to make you another macaroni sculpture for Christmas…”

 

Harry rolled her eyes.  “I can drive you.”

 

“No,” said John, stubborn.

 

“He’ll be fine,” said Joanne, though it sounded more like she was trying to convince herself than anyone else.  “A man needs a bit of independence now and again.”

 

Harry rolled her eyes.  “You’re the expert.”

 

“And don’t you forget it.”

 

In town, John dropped off the eggs and the mail, stopped into a couple of stores to look for presents for Harry and his mother, but he was already feeling the strange itch and tug and didn’t have the patience to really buy anything just then. 

 

_Go go go, get it over with_.

 

As if he wouldn’t enjoy it, he knew.  It was half an hour to French Lick, and the casino was brand-new, bright and shiny, barely open a year, and everyone in it was smiling and happy and clearly enjoying themselves. 

 

John found the cashier, and fingered the hundred in his wallet for a moment before trading it in for chips.

 

“Tables?” he asked politely.

 

“Five dollar tables along the walkways to the left, sir,” said the girl running the cashier stand, still cheerful and preppy.  “They’ll get progressively more expensive the further in you get – up to twenty-five out here.  If you want higher stakes, there’s rooms in the back, hundred and up, but you’ve got to have a minimum of a thousand just to sit.”

 

“Thanks,” said John, took his chips, and went to find an empty chair.

 

It took two hours.  Before he left the casino, he stopped in one of the gift shops, and bought Joanne a cashmere scarf.

 

The rest of the money he left in hundreds, a nice little stack to put in Richard’s stocking.

 

*

 

“The rest of my signing bonus,” John told them on Christmas morning.  “Think of it as rent.”

 

He watched Richard’s hands shake as he tried to count the money, and breathed a sigh of relief.

 

*

 

After that, it was easy. 

 

Drive to town, collect the mail, deliver the eggs, visit the bank, go to French Lick.  Two or three hours, and he’d walk out with his wallet a little thicker than it had been before.  Sometimes he won big.  Sometimes he didn’t.  Sometimes he walked out with nothing at all. 

 

Richard didn’t ask where the money came from, and over the summer, when John couldn’t do much of anything in the fields, apart from driving the tractor, leaving a stack of bills on the kitchen counter where his parents were sure to find it let him feel as though he were actually helping.  Particularly when he’d see Joanne make out the shopping list every week, without the worrisome frown creasing her forehead, and mailed the mortgage check to the bank every month.  After John mailed the check, he’d head back to the casino, feeling good about what he did.

 

He felt even better, setting the thick wad of cash on the kitchen counter later that night. The house was dark; Richard would have gone to bed hours before, and Joanne not much later.  The August air was a bit sticky, but the stars were clear and bright, and John had stared up at them for a good five minutes before coming inside.

 

“Are you an addict?”

 

Harry’s voice out of nowhere in the dark; John knocked over the glass of water on the counter, and swore.  “Shit, Harry.”

 

“Sorry,” said Harry, not sounding sorry at all.  “Dishrags in the bottom drawer.”

 

“I know that, thanks,” snapped John, and found them.  He dropped one on the floor about where the puddle would be, and started using another to wipe up the counter.  “I thought you had a date.”

 

“I did, it was lovely, thanks.  Clara’s got a thing for George Clooney.”

 

“Not Angelina Jolie?”

 

“Her too.  Are you?”

 

“Am I what?”

 

“An addict.”

 

“What makes you think I’m an addict, Harry?” asked John crossly, tossing the wet dishcloth into the sink.

 

“Well, for starters, you go to the casino two or three times a week now, when you used to go maybe once a month.  I don’t know what you’re gambling, exactly, but you don’t always come home with a wad of cash that big.”

 

“Just lucky.”

 

“Yeah.  I can see that.  Not always, though.”

 

“It ebbs and flows, Harry,” said John through gritted teeth. 

 

“Fine, fine,” said Harry, and John heard her chair rub angrily against the floor as she stood up.  “You’re not an addict, you’re just out there gambling away whatever money you don’t have so that Dad can pay off the second mortgage on the farm and stave off losing it for another couple of months.  That’s great.  That’s fantastic.  Keep on doing that for the next twenty years.  That’s sure to end well.”

 

“Fuck off, Harry.  At least I’m _doing_ something.”

 

“Oh, right, I’m sorry.  Actually working in the fields and harvesting the soybeans and running up the orders and finding buyers, that’s not anything.”

 

“How many vodka tonics did you have after dinner tonight, Hare?” asked John.  “Three?  Four?”

 

“Fuck off yourself,” snapped Harry.  “I’m going to bed.”

 

“Don’t run into the wall.”

 

Harry paused in the doorway; she leaned against the frame, but more from weariness than an ability to stand up straight, and her voice, when she spoke, was tired.

 

“You can’t keep up with what he owes, John.  The mortgage?  That’s just the tip of the iceberg.  Take a look at the books if you don’t believe me.”

 

John waited until he’d heard Harry go upstairs, before he leaned down to finish wiping up the spilt water.  He left the sodden dishrags in the sink, and after a last glance at the pile of money on the counter, went to his own room.

 

Undressing took a while, with his shoulder so stiff from driving, and then sitting at the poker tables all night.  He set out his keys and wallet, and then the folded $200 he’d kept back from his winnings, for his starting money the next time around. 

 

He lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, hands folded over his stomach, until he couldn’t stand it anymore, and got back up. 

 

Three o’clock; that gave him an hour before Richard woke up.  John didn’t need that long; one thing about Harry, she kept meticulous records, and John found everything in the filing cabinet, neatly marked in pencil and blue pen.

 

The mortgage, with its six-digit figure.  That, John expected.

 

But the credit card statements.  The bank loan.  The unpaid repair bills, gas bills, heating bills….

 

John stared at the procession of numbers, and carefully, quietly, put everything away again.

 

He saw the light in his parents’ room flick on, just as he was about to close the door to his own room.  He stared at the strip of light under their door, about the man just now waking, gearing himself up for another useless day in the fields, in a futile effort to draw down the numbers, one soybean at a time.

 

John closed his door, and lay out on his bed again; folded his hands over his stomach, and stared at the ceiling.

 

*

 

“Dad.  Dad.  _Dad._ ”

 

“You can stop shouting, I hear you.”

 

“I need to talk to you.”

 

“So talk.”

 

“I was kind of hoping to talk to you when you weren’t knee-deep in soybeans.”

 

“Wait a few months.”

 

“This can’t wait a few months, Dad.  You’re going to have the creditors knocking on the door in two weeks.”

 

“Someone has to load the truck, Jack.  Cain’t be you.”

 

“I can swing a bag of soybeans into a truck.”

 

_Thump_

 

“Dad.”

 

_Thump_

 

“ _Dad_.”

 

“I’m not talking about this with you, Jack.”

 

“I’m not ten years old anymore, Dad.  And the only reason you didn’t lose the farm six months ago is because I’ve been paying for it.”

 

_Thump_

 

“Why didn’t you tell me about the credit cards, Dad?”

“None of your business.”

 

“Or the personal loans?  Or the fact that the savings are all gone?  Dad, the bank didn’t even want to give you another mortgage.  Don’t you think that means something?”

 

_Thump_

 

“Does Ma—“

 

_Thump_

 

“Now look here.  You may think you’ve been paying the bills for the last few months, and maybe you have.  But that don’t give you the right to come into my barn and tell me what you think about the financial decisions I’ve made in the last forty years to keep this family on the land its owned for the past four generations.  You think I don’t know what I’ve done, what mistakes I’ve made?  You don’t think I lie in bed at night and stare at the ceiling and wish I could’ve done something differently?  But I cain’t – it’s done, been done, ain’t nothing I can do to get off this path and thinking about what ain’t happened don’t put food on the table.”

 

“Dad—“

 

“You listen to me.  This is _my farm_ , and maybe letting you help fix my mistake was a mistake too, if it makes you think you have any say in what happens.  I want your financial advice, I’ll ask you for it.  Seeing as you’re so smooth with your own finances.”

 

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

 

“It means I know perfectly well how you got that money you leave on the kitchen counter, and if that’s how you go about it, I’d rather you didn’t.”

 

“You act like I’m robbing a bank or something.”

 

“Ain’t you?”

 

“It’s legal, Dad.  Nothing wrong about it.”

 

“Legal….”

 

“How much do you need?”

 

“You know so much about it, you have to ask?”

 

“Dad.”

 

“I’m not having this conversation.”

 

“Dad.”

 

_Thump_

 

“Dad.”

 

_Thump_

 

“Dad.”

 

_Thump_

 

“For Christ’s sake…”

 

“Don’t take the Lord’s name in vain.”

 

“Then _tell_ me.”

 

_Thump_

 

“Fine.  It’s fine.  If that’s how you want it…fine.”

 

_Thump_

 

_Slam_.

 

*

 

The Christmas lights were up – a bit early, seeing as how Thanksgiving was only the weekend before, but Harry had insisted. 

 

“Got to have something cheerful,” she said grimly, and she held the ladder for John as he strung the lights on the rusty nails.  “And anyway, we might not be here in a year.”

 

“Show a _little_ optimism, Hare.”

 

“I have lots of optimism.  I am optimistic that by next year, none of us will be living on a goddamn going-broke farm.”

 

“Harry…”

 

The lights were already twinkling brightly, their reflection shining on the windows.  Except for the multi-colored light, it was dark in the little lean-to, a bit chilly, but otherwise close and comfortable, with the coats hanging on the hooks, and the work boots sitting neatly below.  John’s next to Richard’s, looking nearly brand-new for all that they were a decade old if they were a day.  John didn’t wear them in quite the same way.

 

John collected the mail waiting by the front door and slid the envelopes into his inside coat pocket.   He patted his wallet, mostly to make sure it was still there, and had just reached for the door when he heard Joanne call his name.

 

“Here, Ma.”

 

Joanne appeared in the kitchen doorway, drying her hands on a dishcloth.  “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you had a girl in town,” she said, smiling a little, and John chuckled and ducked his head.

 

“No girl wants me, Ma.  Broken down kick-out soldier…”

 

Joanne stepped to him and smoothed her hand over his coat, fixing the lapel.  “Oh, hush.  You’re not broken.”

 

“Tell that to my shoulder.”

 

“Nothing a little work wouldn’t fix,” said Joanne briskly.  “Handsome young man like you – wouldn’t matter anyway.”

 

“Ma…”

 

There were more lines around Joanne’s eyes when she smiled at him now.  Her fingers were dry and cool against his cheek, the prints long since worn smooth.  John could see the grey in her hair, thicker at the temples; he could see her older, a bit more frail, a bit more cautious with how she navigated the stairs in the house.  Smiling at him, smiling at the grandchild he and Harry wouldn’t be giving her anytime soon.

 

“I can’t wait to meet her, you know.”

 

“Who?”

 

“The girl you bring home one day.”

 

“Ma, there’s no girl.” 

 

“There will be,” said Joanne, entirely confident, and she patted John’s cheek.  “Go on and find her.”

 

John hesitated, and thought of Joanne and Clara, laughing in the kitchen on Thanksgiving day, while Harry and Richard had sat stonily in the living room, glasses of Jim Beam close to hand.  “Ma.  I don’t…I don’t think….”

 

“There’s time,” said Joanne, and patted his cheek one more time before heading back into the kitchen.

 

The wind was blowing hard; the shutters rattled a little in their places, and the Christmas lights swung against the rafters.  John huddled into his coat, and then huddled in the truck as he turned the ignition. 

 

He glanced at the house in the rear-view mirror as the truck rumbled down the drive to the road.  It didn’t look especially small or large or lovely or pathetic, surrounded by the dark blue of fading twilight.  He thought he could see Joanne standing by a window, or maybe Harry.

 

And then he turned onto the main road, and the little house was lost to view.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First, I know squat about farming. So a lot of those details are probably wrong, or the result of a bunch of internet research. 
> 
> I don’t know much about the Army, either, which I’m sure shows. Stamford’s trick with the glasses, for instance – my brother did the same thing on his last day of boot camp with the Army-issue glasses. Other things I’ve put in for my own reasons, such as the C-5 that takes John out of Afghanistan after he’s injured. I have no idea if C-5s are used for this purpose, but that’s the plane my dad navigated when he was in Air Force when I was a baby, so that’s the plane John’s in.
> 
> *
> 
> Here’s what I didn’t write.
> 
> When John comes back from the casino that night, the house is on fire. Or maybe it’s already burned down, I’m not sure. Neither Richard nor Joanne Watson make it out in time. Harry is severely injured in the fire – smoke inhalation, third-degree burns, something like that – and is basically in a coma, or is so badly hurt that she’s pretty much an invalid for the rest of her life.
> 
> So John loses his family and his home in one night, and has to deal with the guilt of knowing that if he’d been home, he might have been able to save them. That’s why takes the job working on Bill Murray’s farm, because now he’s got to earn the money to take care of Harry, since insurance covers a lot, but not all of it. Harry’s in a good place – and she’s got Clara, who in this world, sticks by her (as a friend, if not a lover). You might remember that the Murray place was having some trouble with the phone lines – I was going to use that a bit so that Clara would be trying to reach John about Harry, and couldn’t get through, and then there’s a bunch of missed connections with letting John know that Harry’s medical condition has gotten worse. I wasn’t quite sure how this would affect the rest of the story – but it probably would have sparked some kind of Moment/Catalyst between John and Sherlock, because God knows John was never going to actually tell Sherlock any of this on his own.


	4. The Romance

As for the story about Sherlock and John… well, obviously they get together. Sherlock brings John back to life. John provides Sherlock some much-needed inspiration, both musically and in a crime-solving sense. I was going to do a whole thing with their song, too – you know, the “Shouldn’t I Love You” song, that John originally writes about Molly? Well, when Sherlock sings the full song on stage, with John in the wings, it has a whole different meaning. When John wrote it about Molly, he was writing about how he _should_ be in love with her, but he isn’t. “You’re perfect for me, why don’t I love you?” When Sherlock sings it, though – it’s about how he _is_ in love with John… and he’s asking why anyone would question that fact. “You’re perfect for me, _why is everyone surprised that I am in love with you_?” Same lyrics, totally different song.

And John realizes this as Sherlock sings it on stage. So when Sherlock comes off the stage – well, that’s their first kiss. Smooch smooch. Some of the lyrics appear in Chapter Three, but I’ve included the full lyrics here for you, because this was one of the first I wrote, and I do like it.

 

You’re hot coffee on a cold dark night

You’re the shine of a star in the pale moonlight

You’re the warm soft quilt when I’m not all right

You’re the only hope I have in sight

So why can’t I love you

 

You’re the rocks that are laughing when the water flows down

You’re the wind that whistles when there’s not a sound

You’re the soft grass covering the cold hard ground

You’re the only one I want to have around

So why can’t I love you

 

 

Couldn’t I, couldn’t I, couldn’t I

Couldn’t I love you?

Shouldn’t I, shouldn’t I, shouldn’t I

Shouldn’t I love you?

You’re the everything that I think I need

You’re the saving grace for a man in need

You’re the light at the end of the endless night

Loving you would be so right

So why can’t, why can’t, why can’t

Why can’t I love you?

 

 

I’ve been bleeding in the dark and the dead of night

I’ve been praying for a miracle when the time was right

I’ve been looking for an angel who could light my way

You’re everything I hoped to find, but I look at you and say...

 

 

Couldn’t I, couldn’t I, couldn’t I

Couldn’t I love you?

Shouldn’t I, shouldn’t I, shouldn’t I

Shouldn’t I love you?

You’re the everything that I think I need

You’re the saving grace for a man in need

You’re the light at the end of the endless night

Loving you would be so right

So why can’t, why can’t, why can’t

Why can’t I love you?

You would be so good for me.

 

 

 

How it ends… well, Sherlock might have found an appreciation for country music through John, but he’s never going to love it enough to stick with it. However, he’s learned that he’s good at the whole detecting thing, and Lestrade, impressed with the work Sherlock’s done, asks him to work with the Dallas police force. Sherlock decides to remain in Texas with John – for one thing, it keeps him away from Mycroft, but also he knows that John would never be happy in London. (And it’s true – for this John, anyway. The good thing about Dallas is that it’s a big enough urban area for Sherlock to have plenty of cases, but it’s also close enough to the countryside for John to have breathing room. There’s an international airport so they can go and visit wherever they like, whenever they like. For them, it’s a good place. It works. John keeps writing songs. Of course he does! John Watson, whatever else he does, is also Sherlock’s storyteller, and yeah, he totally writes about Sherlock from time to time. In Chapter Six, we get a few verses of a song John is writing about Sherlock, called “I Should’ve Known”. Here's the full lyrics, as well as an extra verse and alternate chorus:

_You sail right in as if you own the place_

_With mud on your boots and blood on your face_

_You act like the king of the human race_

_Expect the rest of us to fall into your space_

_You don’t bother with the niceties of thanks and please_

_Did you think I’ll fall in supplication on my knees?_

_I’d rather boot you out onto the tallest trees_

_Or drop you overboard into the deepest seas_

_You could’ve warned me when you came through_

_‘Bout your self-centered, narrow-minded point of view_

_Are you the effin’ prince, am I the dragon you gonna…slew?_

_I should’ve known your game before I looked at you._

(The first three verses are included in chapter six – the third is probably the refrain.)

_You could’ve warned me when you came through_

_That you were gonna do what you were gonna do_

_I should’ve known before I looked at you_

_I should’ve known before I looked at you._

_I didn’t ask for you but you’re what I got_

_Live with what I have and not with what I’ve not_

_You don’t look like much but you’re an awful lot_

_I should’ve known before I looked at you_

_You’re no good for me but you are what I’ve sought_

 

John writes the songs and the melodies, Sherlock turns the melodies into actual scores, but he doesn’t have the desire to record them anymore, or go on tour. For him, setting John’s words to music and creating the scores is just a mental exercise, something to do while he’s sussing out the current case. Just about every country musician in the country is desperate for a Watson-Holmes song, though, and most of them have recorded one, even if it’s just a cover of someone else’s.

I like to think that someone wins the Grammy for _The Ballad of Gloria Scott_. Brad Paisley, maybe. Because I can.

So that’s how it ends. They solve crime and play music and live happily ever after, and if you’d like to imagine them walking off into the sunset, Dog at their heels, and Bastian prancing in a nearby paddock… by all means. I’m certainly picturing it.

Thank you for reading.


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